Dungeoncrashing Dervish

[123456789blaaa]

This was originally an idea posted by someone for the Iron Chef contest that had Dervish as the Secret Ingredient.

The basic idea is using Knockback+ Dervish Dance to move with the enemy around the battlefield after you bull rush them. You don't technically need dungeon crasher but it's awesome for bull rushers so why not add it in (plus helps for Dervish prereqs)?

Any ideas on how to take advantage of this combo? You'll probably want to finish Dervish to get maximum number of Dervish Dances per day. Since you're doing that, Leap Attack helps to take advantage of the bonus to Jump checks the Dervish gets. Any other thoughts?

EDIT: The Darksong Knight ACF for fighter adds Perform: Dance to the fighters class list. The Drow Fighter ACF (which you don't have to be a drow for by RAW): Gain +2 initiative and Dex to damage against flat-footed enemies, while losing heavy armor (which you can't use due to Dervish anyways) and tower shield proficiency(who cares?)

[Piggy Knowles]

Hmm...

Goliath, Feat Rogue 2/Fighter 4/Trapsmith 1/Earth Dreamer 5/Dervish 8, possibly not in that order.

Requires LA buyoff and no multiclassing XP penalties to work, unfortunately, although without LA buyoff you could still have Dervish 7 for four dances per day.

Create stone walls via Trapsmith spells. Use Dervish Dance + Earth Glide to phase through a wall or floor, slamming enemies into walls via Knockback and getting extra damage with Dungeoncrasher, and following them for additional hits each time with Dervish Dance. Then for your final movement, step back into the floor or wall.

How does that sound? Just running off the cuff right now, so I might have gotten my pre-reqs confused, but I'm pretty sure that'll give you enough feats to pull it all off.

[123456789blaaa]

Hmm...

Goliath, Feat Rogue 2/Fighter 4/Trapsmith 1/Earth Dreamer 5/Dervish 8, possibly not in that order.

Requires LA buyoff and no multiclassing XP penalties to work, unfortunately, although without LA buyoff you could still have Dervish 7 for four dances per day.

Create stone walls via Trapsmith spells. Use Dervish Dance + Earth Glide to phase through a wall or floor, slamming enemies into walls via Knockback and getting extra damage with Dungeoncrasher, and following them for additional hits each time with Dervish Dance. Then for your final movement, step back into the floor or wall.

How does that sound? Just running off the cuff right now, so I might have gotten my pre-reqs confused, but I'm pretty sure that'll give you enough feats to pull it all off.

...a mole build? I...did not expect that. Very interesting (didn't you want to create a mole build for the IC Dervish comp?). Couple of things:

The build only gets +15 BAB. That kinda hurts for a primarily melee frontliner.

Two more levels of fighter lose you two feats (which hurts) but gives you another point of BAB (so you get the last iterative) and more importantly, gets you the 6th level dungeonscape sub...oh right, you can't get into Trapsmith that way. Hm.

Trapsmith+Earth Dreamer is a powerful combo. Loses a lot of BAB though...eh the advantages probably outweigh the downsides.

It's a pretty interesting build overall. Not something I expected.

[Piggy Knowles]

I did, although my initial idea was a Dragonwrought kobold who used Alter Self to turn into a dragon with a burrow speed to do it, and levels in Soul Eater to level drain on each attack. But I do think that Trapsmith 1/Earth Dreamer 5 is a pretty boss lead in for almost any build that values mobility.

EDIT: Maybe a trapfinding ranger instead of the rogue levels? That would get you up to +16 BAB, although you'd need flaws to get all the necessary feats in. You'd also probably have to shuffle the levels a bit to get the skills necessary for Trapsmith.

[Tvtyrant]

Wand of Wraith Strike makes the BaB matter a whole lot less.

[123456789blaaa]

Forgot to mention that I made a twin thread over on the minmaxboards. Some interesting stuff has been posted over there.


I did, although my initial idea was a Dragonwrought kobold who used Alter Self to turn into a dragon with a burrow speed to do it, and levels in Soul Eater to level drain on each attack. But I do think that Trapsmith 1/Earth Dreamer 5 is a pretty boss lead in for almost any build that values mobility.

EDIT: Maybe a trapfinding ranger instead of the rogue levels? That would get you up to +16 BAB, although you'd need flaws to get all the necessary feats in. You'd also probably have to shuffle the levels a bit to get the skills necessary for Trapsmith.

Did you original idea use Thrall of Juiblex?

Trapfinding ranger could be an interesting TWF build...but then you wouldn't be able to use THF (armor spikes maybe?).


Wand of Wraith Strike makes the BaB matter a whole lot less.

That seems like it would burn through charges really really quickly.

[Piggy Knowles]

Did you original idea use Thrall of Juiblex?

Trapfinding ranger could be an interesting TWF build...but then you wouldn't be able to use THF (armor spikes maybe?).

I had a few build stubs, and I believe I'd been leaning heavily toward a factotum or a Sword of the Arcane Order wild shape ranger. But it's tough to say for certain, as that was going on two years ago.

As for TWF... well, yeah, losing decent PA returns hurts, but greatsword + armor spikes is always fun. Anyhow, if your main goal is to knock enemies around via Knockback, and you're picking up bonus damage on each hit thanks to dungeoncrasher, you can probably suck up the 1:1 damage ratio on Power Attack without hurting too badly.

[GlorinSteampike]

Wand of Wraith Strike makes the BaB matter a whole lot less.

I think his main concern was the last iterative attack rather than any additional to hit. Though 5 to hit is very nice, Dervish gets a decent amount of flat bonuses.

I am trying to remember personally if/where there is an ability to bullrush people in a direction other than straight back from where you started. I know I've seen it happen to characters in games, but I'm suspecting it was DM homecraft as I can't pull anything up in a few resources.

I always wanted to play an Earth Devotion, Dwarf Warblade/Crasher who turns things into caltrop covered hindering terrain and then shoves/throws/slams people into it, but man that Trapsmith/Earth Dreamer thing got me beat haha.

[123456789blaaa]

I think his main concern was the last iterative attack rather than any additional to hit. Though 5 to hit is very nice, Dervish gets a decent amount of flat bonuses.

I am trying to remember personally if/where there is an ability to bullrush people in a direction other than straight back from where you started. I know I've seen it happen to characters in games, but I'm suspecting it was DM homecraft as I can't pull anything up in a few resources.

I always wanted to play an Earth Devotion, Dwarf Warblade/Crasher who turns things into caltrop covered hindering terrain and then shoves/throws/slams people into it, but man that Trapsmith/Earth Dreamer thing got me beat haha.

The Shock Trooper feat allows you to push a foe one square to the left or right for every square you push your foe back.

That Earth Devotion Warblade idea is interesting. I may play around with it a bit.